Halifax a “haven” for stolen cars

The insurance bureau is helping sort the many stolen luxury cars that have ended up in the port

Halifax a “haven” for stolen cars

Motor & Fleet

By Lyle Adriano

The Municipality of Halifax in Nova Scotia has been identified as a departure point for stolen vehicles, authorities said. From the city’s port, stolen automobiles are shipped overseas for sale.

Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) stated that it had discovered 19 stolen cars in the area for the month of April alone. The cars had a total value of about $650,000 and are mostly newer higher-end sport utility vehicles that were approximately one-five years old, said CBSA regional director general Calvin Christiansen.

Most of the stolen vehicles were from the Montreal and Toronto areas.

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“There’s very few that we’ve encountered that have come from Atlantic Canada,” Christiansen told The Chronicle Reporter on Monday.

“We end up finding them here, inside a container,” he added. “Sometimes they’ve got evidence of being broken into, sometimes they don’t.”

Officers searched three shipping containers destined for export on April 11 and found four stolen vehicles. Nine days later, they inspected two more containers and found another four stolen cars. One more container was checked the following day, which revealed six more automobiles.

Two more shipments were searched on April 27, and five more cars were recovered.

The vehicles have since been transferred to the Halifax Regional Police, who continue the investigation.

Between the start of this year and April 30, the CBSA seized 39 stolen vehicles with an estimated value of $1.5 million. The agency has been cooperating with the Insurance Bureau of Canada to ensure the automobiles’ VINs are not falsified.


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Vehicle thefts in Edmonton surge in 2016
Waterloo Police charge car theft suspects in Ontario heists
 

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